How Bacardi Is Using Jonathan Bailey to Turn Martini Into a Summer Growth Engine

The campaign Bacardi needed

Bacardi has not treated Jonathan Bailey as a one-season summer ambassador. One year after introducing him in MARTINI’s 2025 Off Script campaign, the company has now elevated him to “The MARTINI Man” in a June 2026 global push supported by TV, streaming, digital, social and experiential activity. The work centers on a short film and portrait series set near Venice and on a single hero serve - the MARTINI Bianco Spritz - with Terrazza activations planned for Milan, Madrid, Berlin, Biarritz, Montpellier and New York. 

That matters because the campaign sits inside a broader MARTINI rebuild that started in February 2025. Bacardi used that relaunch to modernize the bottle, launch the Dare To Be platform, introduce Bianco Spritz as MARTINI’s signature summer serve and create Terrazza MARTINI as a traveling consumer experience. It also tightened the physical economics of the brand: the new 1L bottle is 30 grams lighter, while the slimmer shape allows 48 additional 75cl bottles per pallet. Bacardi also positioned Bianco alongside Fiero and non-alcoholic Vibrante and Floreale spritz serves, signaling that this is a platform strategy rather than a one-SKU bet. For brand owners, the key point is simple - this is not a campaign searching for a strategy, but the communications layer of an already-defined brand reset. 

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Why the market timing is real

Bacardi is riding a real occasion tailwind. The company has valued the global aperitivo occasion at close to US$11 billion and said it expects roughly 6% annual growth between 2024 and 2028. Its own 2026 Cocktail Trends Report put Spritz at No. 6 in the top 10 cocktails for 2026, while the new MARTINI announcement cites IWSR data valuing the U.S. spritz category at US$402 million with 17% CAGR over the last five years. Bacardi is not trying to persuade consumers to care about spritz - it is trying to make MARTINI the brand that captures more of an already-rising behavior. 

NIQ’s March 2026 analysis helps explain why that is commercially attractive. In Britain, the spritz has become the country’s most popular cocktail, accounting for 13.6% of cocktail spending in Q3 2025. NIQ also found that spritz over-indexes in mid-afternoon dayparts, attracts an affluent and loyal consumer base, and acts as a gateway for new mixed-drink consumers, including a higher share of male and older drinkers than the average cocktail occasion. In a challenging spirits market, that mix of earlier occasions, broader recruitment and repeat potential is exactly the kind of demand pocket major brand owners want to own. 

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Why Bailey is more than a celebrity face

Bailey works because he brings current cultural heat without overwhelming the brand. Reuters notes his recent visibility across Bridgerton, Wicked and Jurassic World: Rebirth, while Bacardi is positioning him as the latest chapter in MARTINI’s long Hollywood tradition. The role itself matters: Bailey is not just holding a glass in a lifestyle visual. He is being formally inducted into the brand mythology as “The MARTINI Man,” which gives the partnership a narrative frame that many celebrity alcohol deals never achieve. 

The creative discipline is the smart part. Bacardi anchors Bailey to distinctive MARTINI codes - an original 1970s MARTINI Racing car, the coast outside Venice, a mentor-like Maestro, and a finale built around the Bianco Spritz. That reduces the classic endorsement risk in beverage alcohol, where the fame outperforms the brand asset. It also plugs into a larger cultural current: USTOA members named Italy the hottest destination for travelers in 2024 and 2025, and again the leading international destination being booked for 2026. The implication for marketers is that MARTINI is not merely selling liquid refreshment - it is selling a version of Italian style and escape that consumers already want to perform. 

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What the system says about Bacardi's strategy

The campaign is best understood as a system, not a film. The Bianco Spritz recipe is deliberately easy - three parts MARTINI Prosecco, two parts MARTINI Bianco and one part soda - which makes the serve easy to reproduce at home and in bars. Bacardi then layers channels around it: TV and streaming for reach, digital and social for frequency, and Terrazza MARTINI for physical trial and live content. NIQ’s March study makes that architecture even more logical, finding that 54% of spritz consumers say the brand in a spritz is important and that only 13% say their spritz is served well every time. Put bluntly, branded ritual and execution quality still matter in this category. 

There is also a telling change from 2025 to 2026. Last year’s Off Script work emphasized spontaneity and was amplified through more than 30 rooftop, bar and piazza locations across Europe. Ogilvy UK’s case study framed that earlier campaign as PR work within MARTINI’s Dare To Be platform. This year’s version keeps the spontaneity and Italian style cues, but adds global TV and streaming support and narrows the experiential map to a smaller set of hero cities, now including New York. That looks like a recognizable scale pattern - first seed the ritual in culture, then concentrate spend behind the channels and markets most likely to turn awareness into internationally legible brand memory. 

That reading is reinforced by Bacardi’s wider corporate moves. In May 2026, the company appointed IMG Licensing to extend MARTINI and other brands into food, fashion, housewares, travel, lifestyle products and location-based experiences. For C-suite readers, that is a useful signal: MARTINI is being managed as lifestyle IP with drink liquid at its center, not simply as a heritage vermouth label defending shelf space. 

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What alcohol brand leaders should take away

MARTINI does not look like an isolated experiment. In May, Bacardi’s ST-GERMAIN launched Sophie Turner in a French Riviera short film distributed across streaming, digital and social, then extended the campaign through creators, a Cannes pop-up and a later fashion collaboration. Put that next to MARTINI and a repeatable portfolio playbook comes into view - own a seasonal ritual, cast a culturally current ambassador, make the signature serve easy to copy, then turn the fantasy into a physical experience consumers can visit and share. That is far more sophisticated than the old celebrity-plus-advertising model, because it links brand building, occasion creation and experiential conversion in one operating system. 

The KPI lesson is equally clear. Bacardi should care less about raw film views than about branded capture: menu placements for the Bianco Spritz, retail pull for MARTINI Bianco and MARTINI Prosecco, stronger brand linkage inside the spritz occasion, better serve execution in outlet, and repeat social proof from Terrazza activations. If that happens, Bailey will have done more than deliver reach. He will have helped Bacardi turn MARTINI from a famous heritage name into a modern summer growth engine. For alcohol brand owners looking at how to win in lighter, style-driven occasions, that is the real significance of this campaign.